


Pull/Recoil

by Trobadora



Category: Coldfire Trilogy - C. S. Friedman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-26
Updated: 2008-08-26
Packaged: 2017-10-05 13:31:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/pseuds/Trobadora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Along the road, Damien thinks about the Hunter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pull/Recoil

Sunset. That is when it begins.

The Hunter's strength increases with the fading light, and by the time the sun has dropped beneath the horizon, Damien can no longer ignore the tug.

It's pulling at him, drawing, an emptiness sucking him in, devouring him.

The connection is never wholly gone, but it always increases in the dark.

The Hunter is holding back, of course. He's not doing anything. He's just _there_, a hunger yearning to be sated, and Damien can feel it.

He can always feel it.

The pull of the bond between them; the current between them, draining him.

He resists it, of course.

It's a pattern: The instinctive recoil, the instinctive draw. Intimacy and terror, so deeply entwined that he's not sure he will ever again be able to feel one without the other.

Pull, recoil. A steady pattern.

Sometimes he's frightened by how much he's grown used to it.

The terror of the bond, the icy touch of the Hunter's mind, the void sucking him in, devouring him – that is a constant presence at the back of his mind. It increases at sunset, dims slightly at dawn, but it's always there.

He's grown used to it.

Yes, he resists. Of course he does.

He's not that far gone yet.

The channel between them has been used to give him terrors beyond any sane mind's imaginings. But there's something in him answering that call, something that yearns to let himself be devoured, to let himself be sucked dry by the Hunter's very being.

It's a pattern, but he's breaking it.

The bond is no less terrifying, the horrors the Hunter's mind forces on him when he feeds have not lessened. But he's learned - -

\- - oh, dear God, he's learned to let himself fall into the fear, to offer himself up to the Hunter's terrible hunger.

There's something in him that welcomes the nightly terrors.

He tries not to acknowledge that feeling; it will only gain strength from that.

But it's there, irrefutable, undeniable - it's there beneath the thread that binds them together, beneath the terror of the Hunter's feeding, beneath everything.

And the Hunter will feed on it all, in the end. Will bring it all out in his dreams, every little unacknowledged fear and desire.

It's bad enough that he welcomes the terror for that, the sustenance it provides to his companion. Bad enough that he willingly submits to the burning cold of the Hunter's touch, freezing him. But it's worse.

So much worse: There's something in him that finds it a comfort.

He sometimes wakes from a nightmare with a shameful gladness.

He'll never understand how he can feel both at the same time, the terror and dread, and the gladness that makes his heart lighter.

Part of him recoils from himself at that.

How ironic, that he can't manage to recoil from the Hunter as he should, but will recoil from his own terrible faith.

Faith: in the Hunter.

And that is something that should never, ever be.

The shame of it feeds into his fears, and when he sleeps, the Hunter twists them into nightmares, weaves a tapestry of terror from every strand and thread and shred of his feelings, to feed his perverted craving.

And Damien welcomes it.

He does: He can no more stop himself from feeling it than he can stop the sun from setting. He can deceive his eyes, deceive himself, but the truth remains.

The Hunter remains.

And Damien can't recoil from him any more.

This is what frightens him more than Calesta, more than the journey they are on.

This, more than anything.

He hopes the Hunter feeds on that too.


End file.
